Drought spectre looms large

The current drought serves to highlight once again the growing scarcity of water, which was touched upon in this column a few weeks ago. Depending upon our different preoccupations, we tend to see the problem from different angles: a fall in power generation from hydroelectric stations, shortage of drinking water in cities, poor or no returns from crops, and the predictability or otherwise of the monsoon, to name a few. No matter what the angle, the drought is serious and widespread, affecting 320 out of the 524 meteorological districts in the country, as reported in the press. For cities, the supply of water has been curtailed, and such housekeeping measures as checking leaks in the network of supply lines intensified. Some long-term measures include increased harvesting of rain water and preventing wasteful use of water. The first of the ?eco-friendly? bus stops being introduced in Delhi, near Pragati Maidan, has been so designed as to serve as a mini catchment area, and the water collected from it will serve to recharge groundwater?an effort that, on this scale, can only be treated as symbolic as of now. The brunt of the drought is borne by rural India, and the age-old observation about Indian agriculture being a gamble with the monsoon continues to be true. Fortunately, a long run of normal monsoons and greater productivity have ensured adequate reserves of food grains to tide over a drought year. New varieties of major kharif crops, namely sorghum, bajra, and pigeon pea (arhar or tur) that mature faster, and therefore require a shorter growing season and can be sown later than other varieties also offer some promise. It is not just kharif crops that are affected; lower levels of residual soil moisture will mean lower yields from rabi crops too. The long run of good monsoons may have lulled us into a state of complacency; the drought has broken the spell.